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Masterful Musings

Drivel From the Ketchup Boy

Choosing Your Battles

It was 1990, and I was about halfway through my summer job. For theduration of the summer, I was staying with this family here in Winnipeg,and I had arranged to get my own phone line while I was there, so Icould have some privacy with the phone, go online (remember when youused an analog modem for that?) and so on. Due to unforeseen events, Ilost my phoneline halfway through the summer, and I was livid. My dadpicked me up one evening to go out and spend the weekend with myparents, and I went on and on about how unfairly I had been treated, howit had cost me money, and how I should get my money back. My dad triedto tell me to just let it go. I didn't. Finally, in exasperation, Dadsaid, "Okay, do you want me to just give you that money then?" Eventhough I still missed the point my dad was trying to drive home (thatwould take another fifteen years or so), that question at least shamedme into shutting up and (at least outwardly) letting it go.

For whatever reason, this concept of choosing one's own battles has comehard for me. When the Internet first became a part of my life and Istarted joining mailing lists, I always found it necessary to defendmyself whenever falsely accused, or whenever I thought I wasright and everyone else needed to know that I was right.

I've seen a lot of other people doing the same thing. They see someonedisagreeing with them, or some crackpot making an outrageous statement,or maybe just someone disagreeing with them about something they feelstrongly about, and to them it becomes a question of honor. I've beenthere, I've done that. I probably still do from time to time. Whathappens, or at least this is my experience, is that you become grippedwith an overwhelming need for validation. I believe this, that, or theother thing, and it is therefore vital that others see it my way. Hey,isn't there a Beatles song in there somewhere? The result would be thatI'd get into fights with other people on mailing lists, I'd annoy a lotof people who had to slog through all the rubbish, I'd infuriate listowners, I probably wouldn't convince anyone of my point, and peoplewould respect me less. Is "being right" worth it? You get an adrenalinerush for about ten seconds. But I'd rather have people's respect than anadrenaline rush.

What my dad was trying so hard to teach me all those years ago was thatthere are battles worth fighting, and there are battles worth leavingalone. When the abortion debate came up shortly afterwards, I wanted togo all out, righting letters about a woman's right to choose versus achild's right to live, I was ready to go on protest marches, the works.But my dad cautioned me against it. "Don't you care?" I asked him? "Ofcourse I care," Dad replied sincerely, "but this is going to go throughregardless, you can't stop it, I can't stop it, so what's the point ofexpending all sorts of energy trying? Save your energy for the fight youcan win."

This is the man who broke all the rules to make sure that I would beallowed to be educated in the mainstream school system, so I could spendmy childhood living with my family. I'm not arguing here about themerits of mainstreaming versus state-run schools, but rather my point isthat this was a battle that he not only believe in, but he believed hecould make a difference, so he was willing and able to expend his energyon that, because he hadn't wasted it fighting for a phone line for amonth, our trying to lie in front of a bulldozer that refused to stop.

So what do I do? Or at least, what do I try to do? When I feel the needto get up in arms about something, I try to first ask myself if it'sworth it. Am I fighting for something that really matters, or am Imerely wasting all sorts of energy trying to keep a private phone linefor a month? If it is worth it, then can I make a difference? If not, isthere anything to be gained at all by my efforts, or will I just looksilly letting that bulldozer run straight over me? ("Mr. Dent ... haveyou the faintest idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if Ijust let it run straight over you?" "How much?" "None at all.")

If we weed out the pointless battles and the battles in futility, wewill find ourselves with much more energy to the battles that do matter,and where we can make a difference.

Martin Luther King, Jr., understood this. Though it cost him his life,he knew that he could make a difference, and what a difference he made!He knew which battles to fight and how to fight them. The women inCanada who gave women the right to vote understood this, as havecountless men and women, past and present, for countless causes. Thepeople who choose their battles ultimately wind up being the mosteffective at the battles they choose.